Peckham Rye Plaza – sooner rather than later please

Peckham Rye station is one of the busiest stations in Southwark – 2.67Million enterring and leaving during FY10_11 – and the 150th busiest railway station in the UK out of 2,525. Many of these passengers live in East Dulwich ward.

I was delighted that the long term Peckham Visionfor revitalising the centre of Peckham Rye around the railway station has moved several notches closer to becoming a reality.

Both Southwark Council and the Mayor of London are talking about jointly funding the £5M needed to create a new station concourse and new public plaza. This was one our the key Lib Dem manifesto pledges for Peckham in the 2010 local elections.

It will take about a dozen businesses being moved who don’t take advantage of that vast footfall of station passengers but equally will enable many new businesses to be born serving that do serve that footfall. It would also create a new attractive entrance way to people visiting the area and not the seedy run down arcades.

Once this square is established it enables a new Peckham Market behind the station concourse to be constructed. Another step towards making the area flourish.

So the key now is to accelerate from this new cross party political support in actions.

Will Southwark Council regeneration now submit planning permission to get the ball rolling?

9 foot avertising aliens from Mars

Southwark Council has signed a deal with JCDecaux UK Ltd to allow 90 x 2.746m (9foot) tall x 1.472m (4’9″) wide free standing pavement advertising hoardings.

The plan is they’ll be illuminated 24/7, 6 sheet rotating things with the first application for one outside East Dulwich station – 11-AP-3314 – heaven only know what the carbon footprint will be. They will be VERY tall.

If you think this is a great or bad idea please do tell the planning officer anna.clare@southwark.gov.uk.

And please do tell me what you think.

Ministers: stop pandering to the motoring lobby

I’ve just read a wonderful insightful and witty letter by a Steve Melia in Local Transport Today…

” Inspired by Philip Hammond’s launch of the consultation on motorway speed limits, and the successful campaign by motorists’ groups against speed camera, I am pleased to announce the formation of a new organisation: the Campaign for Ethical Looting.

We believe in the principle of policing by consent. Through history, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the recent riots in British cities, a substantial proportion of the population has always responded to social crisis by looting. If significant proportions of the population routinely break a particular law, we believe it is the law that needs reform. Instead of criminalising looters, we believe a more effective strategy would focus on education: highlighting opportunities for targeted looting to make a positive contribution to a more just society; bankers, arms dealers, rail rolling stock companies, etc.

Above all, we will campaign for the removal of CCTV camera in town centre and shopping malls, which criminalise otherwise law-abiding citizens, and whose real objective has little to do with crime prevention and everything to do with raising revenue for the Treasury.”

Speed cameras – especially average speed cameras – enforce the law see people reduce speeds and save lives. Higher speeds on motorways will see more deaths and injuries as well as more CO2 produced. These are the dark side of the national coalition with ministers cocooned from the impacts in their chauffeur driven cars.

107 years wait

This must be my favourite bit of casework so far this year.

It all started when I reported getting a missing sign post for Norcroft Gardens replaced. I was contacted by a resident from Dulwich Rise Gardens asking if they could have a sign post. I then realised they’d also made several complaints about poor Royal Mail deliveries. Then enquiring about the address I couldn’t think where the they lived – Dulwich Rise Gardens. This isn’t an East Dulwich ward road. I asked for a description of where it was as I physically hadn’t been able to find it.

It transpires that it’s accessed via an unmarked alleyway. You either know about it or you don’t. In fact they said they’d never had a street nameplate in 107 years of the houses being there. About ten years ago they said postal deliveries started to become less reliable as postmen and women were moved around more.

So two weeks later we have a street nameplate – hopefully residents there will start to get more reliable deliveries.

Southwark Lib Dem recycling record

After 8 years of leading Southwark Council the  Lib Dems increased recycling from the 3.6% and falling rate when we took the lead in 2002 to 22.10% and rising in 2010.

But the target for 2010 had been 24.20%. So what happened?

The targets for 2009/2010 had been less than 50.01% going to landfill – we achieved 45.70%. Having less than 728.86Kg of residual waste from each Southwark households – we achieved 703.61Kg.

Yes the recycling rate was slightly if annoying missed but overall 3.5% less waste was produced and 4.3% less went to landfill. So in the round an excellent result.

But what should we be pleased to achieve by 2022.? Is zero landfill possible? How much less waste can we all produce?

LPG your way to CO2 savings

Global warming is undoubtedly happening. We need to cut our emissions by 80% by 2050.

But our society is largely motor vehicles based. So when can we rely on vehicles that use Hydrogen or Electricity to power them – well no time soon.

However, we do have an old technology we could use now to keep those that must have motor mobility but using a little less energy producing CO2 – Liquid Petroleum Gas. It’s between 10-14% less CO2 producing so not huge amounts of saving but it helps and it gets people used to the idea of change. But it does produce dramatically less NOx than diesel and petrol and zero particulates which is a big issue for things like taxis, buses and lorries on our London streets.

Kits to convert existing cars cost between £1,200-£2,000. They payback between 6-18 months depending on the mileage the vehicles does.

If you do a lot of mileage and absolutely must use a car take a look at  www.drivelpg.co.uk and consider whether you could change.

We have localish Petrol stations selling LPG at –   97-309 Southwark Park Road, SE16 2JN; 96/106 Camberwell Road, SE5 0HB; 747-759 Old Kent Road, SE15 1NZ; 163-165 Stansted Road, SE23 1HP.

Night time parasites

The British Retail Consortium is asking for night time delivery restrictions to be lifted across London.  Apparently just for the Olympics and Paralympics….

Night time deliveries are severely restricted to ensure residents can sleep. So children do better at school, employees are attentive at work, etc.

The draconian Olympic and Paralympic Road networks are ‘problematic’ enough. Now businesses want to rip up the rules that help Londoners sleep. And we know that disproportionately poorer people live along our busier roads. These are exactly the people least likely to be able to afford to go and see the Olympics – all the hassle with zero benefits.

I just don’t get why the Olympic Delivery Authority doesn’t like London?

I really did expect the London Olympics to be a show case for London and Britain. Its turned into an event to cocoon and shield 50,000+ foreign officials, sports people and journalists from being in London while staying here. From Olympic zil express routes, to cordoned 5* hotels. The list of condescension  and concessions is endless and now the lorries to service these parasites want to travel at night time as well.

Where will it end?

Compulsory Food Ratings

I have a passionate interest in environmental health from a close family experience.

The Food Safety Agency working with local councils have a scheme for giving ratings to all food establishments – based on hygienece, cleanliness, process, training. You can see their ‘Scores on the Doors’ on line and Android and Apple apps.  The ratings go:

0   –  Urgent improvement necessary (8)
1   –  Major improvement necessary (48)
2   –  Improvement necessary (26)
3   –  Generally satisfactory (34)
4   –  Good (81)
5   –  Very good (35)

Amazingly businesses don’t have to display their scores in a visible place or schools having to tell parents. In Wales the devolved government is planning to make is compulsory.  Frankly it should be UK law.

Frankly all food establishments should be able to reach a score of 5. In the SE22 East Dulwich area we have 232 rated food places, 35 with 5*, 81 with 4*, 34 with 3*, 26 with 2*, 48 with 1* and 8 with 0*’s. Some really low scoring places are local schools!

Until all food establishments have to display their scores they don’t have to try very hard to keep the public safe.

Do you think all scores should have to be displayed?

Getting food safety wrong can be fatal and cause lasting life changing health issues.

Planning changes who gains?

I have serious reservations about the coalition governments plans for reforming the planning system. I doubt many MP’s have ever sat as a councillor on a council Planning Committee or for that matter been a developer promoting a scheme. I’ve done both and the current system is biased towards big developers.

The system isn’t perfect but it does balance many competing wishes in a relatively fair way. If anything the present system, due to concerns by councils about potential to lose appeals and have costs awarded against them, already have a tacit presumption in favour of developers. If anything objectors should be able to appeal against a planning application granted permission – they can’t currently.

So I’m hopeful that the fuss caused by the National Trust, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Friends of the Earth and others is successful in getting any changes to be balanced. Even better would be abandon these anti resident and community changes.

After all leading tory politicians were only to happy with the current system when major developments were proposed in there backyards and they used the system to block applications they didn’t want.

Meat Free Mondays

The Dulwich Vegan and Vegetarian Society (DVVS)  are encouraging residents and businesses to support the concept of meat free days.

I’m observing meat free Monday’s. Whole host of great positive reasons to support this – health, environment, finance and obvious animal welfare. My eating habits are entrenched but I’m making a real effort on Monday’s. I’m interested in becoming a vegetation full-time but the prospect of cultured meat that is grown in labs rather than on animals isn’t helping my motivation levels!

So far DVVS have obtained the following support:

Schools: Alleyn’s School (advertising the scheme to the students and providing meat free options)
Faith organisations: Churches: St Stephen’s Church, St John’s The Evangelist, St Saviour’s Coplestone Centre and Christ Church.
Local Charities: Southwark Friends of the Earth
Restaurants that serve meat free dishes: Blue Brick Café, Indian Mischief, Ganapati, Jacks, Tandoori Nights, East Dulwich Tavern, Locale, Peckham Rye Café.
Shops: SMBS, Dulwich Healthmatters, Dulwich Supermarket
Health and Sport: High Vibe, The Vale Practice, Energy Therapy, Dulwich Yoga Space.

Their target is to obtain over 1,000 Dulwich residents signing up to meat free days. Could you be one of them?

If you’re interested in making this pledge contact Thomas Micklewright, The Dulwich Vegan and Vegetarian Society:

T: 07789 322 920
E: thomasmicklewright@hotmail.com
Web: http://www.dvvs.vegangroup.co.uk
Facebook: The Dulwich Vegan and Vegetarian Society

Twitter: @DulwichVeganSoc